alright you’ve been extremely extremely kind and indulgent to me about my oc and i cannot possibly thank you enough <333333 so MY turn now to ask YOU about YOURS. please tell me about maglor’s distant granddaughter who is also your bbeg?? .w. or about the chatty hobbits i would very VERY much love to hear about both!!!
~ @nelyoslegalteam, reporting from main <3
(long post, sorry for the random people stumbling upon this lol)
so I'm the dm for the chatty hobbits campaign and essentially it's set in a beleriand-adjacent continent, but with a few extra races and stuff. of the founders of the original settlements, the king of elende (the elf kingdom) is Gil-galad's (invented for the campaign) twin brother Finellach/Finwain. originally he was inspired by the fact that gil galad has a ton of names but only uses ereinion/gil, so I just invented a new character and gave him half the names. I headcanon gil galad as maglor's son, so finwain is in universe maglor's son (left at the havens with gil bc his wife divorced him for kinslaying and his kingdom, being next door neighbors with morgoth, is far too dangerous for small children).
Anyways, his descendant Elinyel (also known as aramire or elinnor) is the current queen of Elende! she's an evil fire-themed bard who is extremely feanorian in all the worst ways - her actual kingdom prospered under her reign, but she just does not care about everyone else as long as she's protecting her people. There were some tensions with one of the major kingdoms to the north (conflict over unclaimed territory between the kingdoms and some tariff stuff), so instead of risking the other kingdom starting a war and hurting her people, she just preemptively invaded it and started burned all the border territories to the ground.
her actual coronation was pretty weird- so she's the second child, but her older sister was born in wartime and there's a general belief in elende that children of peacetime make better rulers, so Elinyel was chosen as her family's heir. her grandfather (the crown prince of his generation) died defending Elende in one of the major wars, but his younger brother and two young kids survived. there's a whole feud between their houses because the brother chose to retain the kingship even after the kids were old enough to take the throne. anyways, two generations later Elinyel killed her cousin Arendil (the previous king of Elende) over a dispute about the legitimacy of his house (and what she believed to be a dishonoring of her grandparents' sacrifice) and took the throne.
obviously she has many Issues. arendil also has two surviving kids who are now essentially trying to stop her from murdering all their neighbors in proactive defense of her people.
however, when she first ascended she recruited her friend group as her elite guard/vassals of the kingdom. (aka the other bosses in the storyline). so it escalated to a war between her forces and the children of arendil, which ultimately culminated in her beloved sister being killed by one of arendil's children. this in turn led to her having basically a massive mental breakdown and feeling like she failed to protect her loved ones (exacerbated by some of her other friends being killed in battles she led). a normal person might decide this is was kind of her fault for starting a war and putting her friends in charge of the army. instead she decided she needed to destroy everyone who could ever potentially pose a threat. which is, in her eyes, literally everyone on the continent (except for her kingdom, of course).
so now she is at war with absolutely everyone of all factions! She is also somehow winning by virtue of Song almost on the level of maglor himself, and ten (now six) also incredibly powerful friends. Anyways, she has decided that the best way to wipe out the continent (except her kingdom) and start fresh is to literally find an ancient lost stone that can break the Doors of Night, summon Morgoth himself, and start the Dagorath. obviously this will Not go well for anyone at all if she succeeds, but she is on a full-on rampage and genuinely believes she (plus friends) can protect her kingdom from Morgoth's army while he wipes out everyone else.
Here's some old art of her btw!
And some slightly more recent unfinished art of her and the Evil Friend Group from when they were younger:
and here's (L-R) her cousin who is the 3rd boss, Elinyel, and her sister from before the war!
12 notes
·
View notes
Hot take - I like the algorithms.
I'm never getting rid of the 'Following' tab, and it's my home, but after being on Tumblr for idk, at least a decade, I'm following a diverse group of people, some of whom no longer reblog the stuff I followed them for, and so when I have a ✨fandom craving✨ it doesn't often feed me. Now, I use it to check up on what people are doing and say hello to fandoms that aren't at the forefront of my brain.
I love the For You dashboard for feeding current obsessions. Tumblr noticed I reblogged a Nimona post, and now I have 10 more to enjoy! Do I think Nimona will be a forever fandom for me? No, so I'm not gonna follow a Nimona blog, but yes, please give me content for it this week!
And Your Tags is brilliant for a few reasons. If I have a fandom that I'm trying to protect - aka not letting it leave my brain in an effort to push through finishing a fanfic - I follow associated tags! (it's amazing how many more posts are tagged #yugi muto vs #viktor hargreeves, which yes, has had an impact on me not updating Grocery List Goals, and damn does that say something about the current state/evolution of fandom.) That means this dashboard is full of things to get me in the writing mood. I also have a sideblog, but I don't always want to follow blogs to feed it. It's a different topic than my main, it'd spoil my Following dash, and I really want to keep those two usernames separate, so following with my main is not the best. So once again, I follow tags!
Favs, I will admit, is usually a bit redundant - there's a lot of overlap between it and Following, especially if someone I follow doesn't use the queue, but occasionally I'll see something I missed.
My Following/chronological dashboard is soo good at giving me Tumblr culture, keeping up with people, and helping me discover new things, but the algorithms are good at giving me specific, curated content and I've used it to find new fan artists. Maybe 70% of my reblogs come from them. It does tend to prioritize recent posts, and sometimes I'd love to find older works (damn, finding a string of yugioh posts about DSOD predictions was wild and delightful, but that was via trolling older blogs and sometimes I'd love to see spiderverse art from the first movie too, you know? ) but I do get a mix of wildly popular posts and those that only have 10 notes.
I guess, in short, I like having options and enjoy using parts of tumblr in different ways for different reasons. Not that I want them to add more algorithms, these are good, and there are other features I'd love more (*cough* sideblog usability *cough*), but I also get those are for seasoned Tumblr users and not the newbies they're trying to attract.
0 notes
In my own experience as a Jewish Leftist, and corroborated by the similar experiences of other Jewish Leftists, there are, roughly speaking, five to six broad categories of Leftists in their attitudes towards Jews. This is a tangential categorization in terms of precise political affiliation; in other words, one's position in these categories is not dependent on what precise type of Leftist/Progressive an individual is.
Type 1: Open And Unapologetic Jew Haters
These Leftists hate Jews and don't try to hide it at all. According to them, Jews are the Problem, and they know what type of Solution they want enacted.
The archetypal example that I'll currently use is Cynthia McKinney, former US Congresswoman and US Green Party presidential candidate, who, well...
But this is also the class of Leftists who say that there is no room for Judaism in their ideal, imagined perfect world, that they picture everyone assimilating and giving up their ethnic and cultural identities to just be "human", and often single out Judaism as a particular problem in that regard.
Type 2: Closeted Knowing Jew Haters
These Leftists hate Jews, know that they hate Jews, but know that it's bad optics to openly praise Hitler or cozy up to the KKK to satisfy their hatred of Jews, so they try to find the barest veneer of plausible deniability to hide behind. "Anti-zionism" is a particular favorite on the Left, but the hatred has a way of slipping past the mask when they get questioned.
A classic example here is the Boston Mapping Project, who literally made up a list of every Jewish institution in Boston, Mass, on suspicion of them being "Zionist"--including elder homes, Jewish high schools, and Kindergartens, and including scary "links" on the map to various government agencies, no matter how tenuous or outright imaginary, thereby invoking old conspiracy tropes about "Secret Jewish Control of the Government". (And BDS, as the parent organization, also gave the lie that they're just antizionist, not antisemitic, when they disavowed the Mapping Project for bad optics, not the rank antisemitism and conspiratorial thinking they were promoting). Another example would be the organizers of the Chicago Dyke March, who explicitly expelled Jews from the March and crowed about "zio tears" (which is a slur originally used by the KKK, no less).
However on first encounter, Type 2 are indistinguishable from and camouflaged by...
Type 3: Undereducated And Unknowing Traffickers In Antisemitism
These Leftists don't hate Jews per se... they're just unaware of the deep antisemitic history of repeating claims that "Jews have too much power", or stating that the Holocaust was "White on White violence", or that "Jews are just White People from Europe", or any of a host of other antisemitic beliefs that are endemic on the Left. They're initially indistinguishable from Type 2, as they say the same things, and can only be told apart by their reactions; a Type 3 will go, "Oh, I didn't know and I'll try to learn!", while a Type 2 will typically double down, or let the mask slip in some other way.
The problem is that, from the perspective of Jews, Type 2 and Type 3 are indistinguishable from each other at first glance, and rather than try to engage and risk the emotional harm, a lot of Jews tend to write off all of them as Type 2, and there's a lot of debate on the ratios between the two.
Also worthy of mention, as a midpoint between Type 2 and Type 3 are:
Type 2.5: Openly Antisemitic "I'm Not An Antisemite, I Just Refuse To Learn, Listen, Or Let Jews Define Antisemitism"
As a midpoint between types, these Leftists openly traffic in antisemitic motifs, conspiracies, and attitudes, all the while insisting that they're not antisemitic. They're a midpoint between types 2 and 3 because they've had plenty of time and opportunity to learn about the bigoted attitudes they're espousing, but refuse to do so... but at the same time, they genuinely seem to think that they're not antisemitic. They just think that there's a vast Jewish conspiracy out to get them personally, or any of a number of other antisemitic beliefs, and refuse to accept or learn that what they're saying is antisemitic. They can believe that they themselves are not all they want, saying that Jews have too much money and power and run the world's politics is still trafficking in antisemitic conspiracy theories.
The archetypal example of this type, assuming we can take his word for it, is Roger Waters. Waters is openly and explicitly antisemitic, saying that there is a widespread conspiracy of Jews running the world's politics... but he has been insisting for over 40 years that he's just "antizionist, not antisemitic."
But these are just the outspoken ones. None of them would get anywhere without the tacit support of...
Type 4: The Silent Majority
These Leftists are, being blunt, hypocritical cowards. They don't want to get involved in issues on antisemitism. When a Leftist Jew is being harassed by one of Types 1 to 3, they don't speak up, they don't get involved, they just say nothing.
Maybe they agree with one of the above types. Maybe they just don't want to get involved. Maybe they're afraid of seeming sympathetic to Israel. Maybe they're afraid of getting the social backlash that the Jew is experiencing. But ultimately, their motivations don't matter, their actions do—and their actions give tacit social support to the antisemite in the Leftist group, not to the Jew being harassed and chased out.
And the reason they're hypocritical cowards?
Well, if your ideology claims that you want a better life for everyone and social progress and being against racism and bigotry... but yet they don't speak up when it's happening right in front of them...
Well.
That says a lot, doesn't it? Both on what their ideals actually mean to them... and how highly they value Jews. And we know that it is possible, because of...
Type 5: The Pro-Jewish Leftist
These Leftists are, in my experience, a minority outside of Leftist Jews, but they do exist among non-Jewish Leftists. They stand up to Types 1, 2, and 3 when they express antisemitic views, and try to shame and cajole Type 4 into standing up as well.
And, just to point out how normalized antisemitism is on the Left...
Some people in this category might object to being labeled as "Pro-Jewish", as if they're biased for Jews. But I have to ask... do you think that they would also object to being labeled "Pro-LGBTQ"?
4K notes
·
View notes